4 ms·
If supersonic travel were ever to be the norm it has to start at the high end first like Tesla did.
by friendlybus 7y ago
If supersonic travel were ever to be the norm it has to start at the high end first like Tesla did.
- robotresearcher 7y agoConcorde's first flight was 1969 and ran commercially until 2003. High end demoed.
- scoopertrooper 7y agoI don’t get the point you are trying to make here. The concord used a certain set of technologies and this aircraft uses another set of technologies with their own challenges. I mean I guess the concord was also a large supersonic passenger plane, but the similarity is largely superficial.
- robotresearcher 7y agoI was responding to a point about supersonic transport, not this plane.
- lmm 7y agoIt wasn't commercially successful enough to continue operating - partly because it wasn't permitted to fly supersonically over the continental US, through some combination of being too noisy and not being made in the US. Boom is the next iteration that addresses that.
- rconti 7y agoI mean, a 34 year run is a pretty good proof of concept. They weren't running on Sand Hill VC bucks.
- lmm 7y agoThey kind of were. The development programme was funded by not one but two national governments, seen as Europe's answer to Apollo. The programme didn't even make an operating profit, much less start to pay back development costs. BA claimed to make a small operating profit on it, but only by sharing maintenance costs with AF's loss-making operation; once AF pulled out it wasn't viable even with the prestige it brought them. I love Concorde but it wasn't really a commercial operation the way you'd usually use the term.
- molszanski 7y agoCan it be less noisy? Don't think so. They should climb higher to be less noisy. To climb higher they have to go faster. To go faster they must have blackbird class body and engines. This is a very high ask
- lmm 7y agoBoom's whole value proposition is that they can make it less noisy essentially just by shaping the aircraft right, aided by improved fluid dynamics modelling techniques etc. They reckon they can improve enough to make a difference - or, cynically, improve enough to give an America-first FAA an excuse to approve them.
- molszanski 6y agoOh! Good to know!
- gsnedders 7y agoYes; we know for a fact that we can make much quieter supersonic aircraft, even for large transport aircraft (existing smaller aircraft of the same period as Concorde were already much quieter, and we've improved on that since). Note however no current proposal for a SST is anywhere near as big as Concorde, which already gives them an inherent advantage.
- molszanski 6y agoOk, good to know. Would love to seem the succeed at their goal. Quiet supersonic today feels like a dream